Category Archives: map

Commerce may be the primary purpose of all cities, the thing that makes other aspects of life there possible. What happens to this relationship when markets are free to gut punch housing seekers at will? Inequity seems to be shaping life in Canadian cities and this is unfair and unreasonable when it bears comparison to an out of control event, a natural disaster.

image: Tyler Wilson via Flickr/CC

For low income neighbourhoods to increase from 9% of a place to 51% of a place is a pretty crap reality. Welcome to Brampton and Mississauga, once showpieces of growth and consumer choice. Really, if you know anything about social conditions here the update to a 2015 United Way report will not surprise you.

Not working isn’t the cause of all this. In case you were wondering about 60% of those in poverty in Canada are in work.

Climate change meets sprawl at the synthetic waterline along the Gulf of Mexico. Perilous developments these days for the Houston Ship Channel and places like Rockport, Texas, seen in the image above from a Google Maps screen shot. Turning away from the spectacle of Hurricane Harvey’s wet trek into Texas is just about impossible.

A changing world asks questions about the way we build communities and operate their economies. America’s fourth largest city is also a source of the fossil fuels that helped make sprawl and climate change possible. Business as usual this time next year?

An artificial Intelligence application that processes US Census data and digital satellite photos is in existence. Penny can crunch the physical and numerical life of your community and describe its status. Yes, it is amazing. Yes, it is a tad creepy. Powerful stuff but what to do with this to better communities is the question to ask.

Here is a link to an impressive online application that maps Canadian data about rental accommodation. Yes, things can get dire pretty when you include cost and quality parameters in searches. Tons of data.

Earlier this year urban planning was said to be the hot new occupation. Nice! Especially if it means we’ll have more people paying attention to the built, spatial dimension of inequality and poverty? Hope so. No kids, it isn’t all groovy, inclusive charettes and pencil crayon renderings of LRTs. Here’s a couple of recent pieces to help the young upstarts dig into the realities.